Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Meet the man who wants to make it illegal for journalists to post undercover footage

Assemblyman
Jimmy Gomez (D-Los Angeles) is a relative newcomer to the California
legislature, but he’s proving himself to be one of the most dangerous
politicians there. Elected in 2012, Gomez is the author of AB 1671. This
bill is being decried – even by liberal media organizations and supporters of abortion – as blatantly unconstitutional.

AB 1671 would “make
it a crime to publish confidential conversations with certain health
care providers—most notably, anyone affiliated with an abortion
clinic. This means anyone who posts a photo or video of an interaction
with an abortion clinic employee or volunteer—including clinic
escorts—could be prosecuted under the bill. AB 1671 provides for
penalties of up to $10,000 per violation and one year in state prison.”

Media organizations are speaking out
against this bill, not because they necessarily support pro-life
undercover investigative journalists like David Daleiden or his Center for Medical Progress,
but because they realize that such an unconstitutional law could easily
be applied to them. It is already illegal in California to record a
conversation without both parties’ consent (in most situations). But AB
1671 would extend the government’s reach, arguably allowing them to
prosecute any citizen or journalist who publishes recorded content
involving certain “health care providers” – whether or not they were the
one to actually record the content.

Yet Gomez has chosen his ally in this battle, and it’s neither the
common man nor the Constitution. Instead, Assemblyman Gomez – who
represents northeastern Los Angeles and East Los Angeles – has selected
Planned Parenthood as his BFF.

Days ago, Gomez posted this picture on his Twitter account:

In 2015, Planned Parenthood Los Angeles (PPLA) gave Gomez its
Champion of Choice Award. According to the Center for Medical Progress,
PPLA was discovered
partnering with Novogenix Laboratories, LLC, to deal with “fetal organ
harvesting at their surgical abortion clinics.” In the video below,
Novogenix’s Executive Director, Dr. Ben Van Handel, can be heard
admitting that, sometimes, after the abortion is done, “the [baby’s]
heart actually is still beating.” And yet, the baby’s organs and body
parts are still promptly harvested.Documentsreleased by the New York Times include an email
between a fetal body parts buyer and a harvester, who already had “a
lot of frozen fetal tissue,” but was planning to go to a California
Planned Parenthood for more fresh body parts, including a liver.

This organization – Planned Parenthood in California – is the one
Gomez has chosen. They, too, have chosen him. In two elections (2014 and
2016) Gomez has received $13,500 from
Planned Parenthood, even though he lives in an incredibly liberal
district where he hardly needs the support. In 2014, he received 83.6%
of the vote.
Prior to running for the CA legislature, Gomez worked as the
Political Director of the United Nurses Associations of California. This
group is listed consistently as one of Gomez’s top campaign
contributors, and it often joins Planned Parenthood in support of
various legislation or ballot initiatives in the state. UNAC also recently hosted a Women’s Empowerment Forum where it invited a PP staff member to speak, demonstrating the companionable relationship between the two groups.
Gomez has made no secret of the purpose of some of his sponsored
legislation: to benefit Planned Parenthood. One bill he sponsored in
2015, AB 1177 (which was signed into law by the governor), removed the
legal requirement of a Hospital Transfer Agreement from community care
clinics. Such transfer agreements (and the similar hospital admission
privilege requirements) protect patients and “serve as a safety net,” particularly in dangerous and time-sensitive emergencies. PP despises such agreements, even though they prevent abortionists from abandoning their patients. Since such a law benefits PP (while endangering women), Gomez calls the law, “Protects Patient Access to Planned Parenthood Services,” even though it applies to all community care clinics.
In 2013, Gomez sponsored what
appears to be a good piece of legislation, AB 790. He claimed AB
790 would “assure that child abuse reports are made by every mandated
reporter.”

This bill is critical in maintaining
safety among all children. “There is a loophole in the law, which
creates a situation where not every mandated reporter is required to
report the abuse, suspected abuse or neglect of a child,” said
Assemblymember Jimmy Gomez.”

It’s simply unfortunate that Gomez hasn’t realized how terrible his BFF, Planned Parenthood, is at reporting child abuse. Perhaps he would reconsider his vocal, absolutist support of the abortion chain if he watched this video:
Simply put, since Assemblyman Gomez enjoys focusing on and fixing
apparent loopholes in the law, it would be far more helpful to women if
he would find and fix the ‘loopholes’ that allow them to suffer at the
hands and the silence of Planned Parenthood.

In 1977, abortion was legal throughout the country during all nine
months of pregnancy. When an obstetrician/gynecologist told teenager
“Mary W” that she was 28 weeks pregnant, he suggested that she give the
baby up for adoption, as few doctors in the area were willing to perform
abortions that late.

But Mary was determined, and she managed to find an abortionist – Dr.
William Baxter Waddill. On March 2, 1977, Mary arrived at Westminster
Community Hospital for a saline abortion.
Saline abortions are seldom performed today because of the
possibility of live births, but in the ’70s and ’80s, they were very
common. They were generally used to end the life of a child towards the
end of the second trimester.
In a saline abortion, a caustic saline solution is injected into the
woman’s uterus. It slowly burns and poisons the baby, and then the woman
goes through labor, “giving birth” to a usually dead child.
The abortionist injected the saline and then left, leaving the nurses
to tend to Mary. It was common for abortionists to inject their
patients with saline and then leave, forcing the nurses to bear the
emotional brunt of the abortion procedures and to dispose of the dead
babies. In this case, however, Mary gave birth to a living baby girl, 2
pounds, 8 ounces.
At first the nurse did not realize that the baby was still alive. She
clamped the cord as normal and placed her in a bucket to be taken to
the pathology lab. Then the baby began moving and crying. The nurses
gathered around the baby. Unsure what to do, they summoned their
supervisor, who called Dr. Waddill at home. Mary was not told that her
baby had been born alive – the infant was whisked away from her before
she realized what had happened.
All of this came out in testimony at the trial.File photo: Newborn baby.
While waiting for Waddill to arrive, the nurses cleaned the baby,
suctioned her throat to help her breathe, brought her to the nursery,
and placed her in isolette. A neonatal ICU nurse began taking care of
the child and charted a heart rate of 88 beats per minute. According to
the American Heart Association, an ideal heart rate for newborns is 140 bpm. However, premature babies often have lower heart rates, and many of them survive.
When Dr. Waddill arrived at the clinic, he was angry. He reportedly
chased all the nurses out of the room and made a call to another
physician, Dr. Ronald Cornelsen. The law at that time stated that two
doctors needed to be present to pronounce a premature baby dead. The
conversation between the two doctors was recorded and entered into
evidence in the trial. According to the tape, Waddill said:

If we all tell the same story, there will be no trouble. …
So long as we stand together, no one anywhere can make any accusations
anywhere. … Do not get squirrely. Just tell them exactly as we’ve
discussed. Just say you went in, there was no heartbeat and you left.

Dr. Cornelsen later testified that he believed that the baby was
closer to 31 weeks than 28 weeks. He heard Waddill say, “Sorry to get
you into this mess. We had a baby that came out alive from a saline
abortion, and it can’t live!”
Dr. Waddill requested potassium chloride to inject into the baby’s
heart to stop it. Dr. Cornelsen prevented the nurse from getting it.
Waddill then discussed throwing the baby into a bucket of water. Dr.
Cornelsen said in testimony:
“I said, ‘Why not just leave the baby alone?’ Waddill said, ‘This baby can’t live or it will be a big mess.'”
Finally, Waddill began strangling the child in full view of
Cornelsen and other nurses. No one stopped him. He was quoted saying,
“This baby won’t stop breathing!”
When the baby was autopsied later, an examination of the lungs
indicated that the baby had been breathing for at least 30 minutes.
There were bruises on her throat, consistent with strangulation.
Dr. Waddill went to trial. However, despite the fact that the autopsy
proved that the baby had been strangled and a number of witnesses
watched the strangulation, charges against Waddill were dismissed after
two mistrials. He was never punished for strangling the baby. He was not
reprimanded in any way.

He did not lose his medical license. In fact, he continued to perform
abortions, and as of the year 2000, he was working for the Family
Planning Associates’ chain of abortion facilities. He and the facility
he worked at were even endorsed by the National Abortion Federation, an
organization that supposedly gives endorsements only to the best
facilities and providers.
Incidentally, despite the fact that Family Planning Associates has been endorsed by the NAF, at least 12 women have died at their clinics, and there have been numerous lawsuits.
Could the little girl have survived if she had not been strangled? In
the 1970s, neonatology was not as advanced as it is today. In the
1990s, over 90 percent of babies born at 27 weeks were able to survive. The number is even higher now.
Statistics from the 1970s are harder to come by, but an article in The Sydney Morning Herald
claims that these babies had about a 71 percent survival rate if given
medical attention promptly. So it is possible – if not very likely –
that the baby would have survived if she had continued to be treated in
the ICU.
Much of the information contained in this article was brought to light by Christina Dunigan. Her blog can be found here:See “History: William Waddill and the killing of baby W” and “Can Gosnell Walk?”

Saturday, May 28, 2016

With the conventions of both political parties coming closer and
closer, and with the infighting between Hillary Clinton and Democratic
Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders growing more vituperous by the day, it
can’t be a good sign for the former Secretary of State when the
editorial page of the Washington Post rips into her, as does sympathetic Post columnist Dana Milbank, and even Democratic flack NBC’s Chuck Todd voices skepticism.
The firestorm of criticism was lit, of course, by the scathing report
by the State Department’s inspector general this week about Mrs.
Clinton’s use of a private email server when she served as President
Obama’s Secretary of State.
Todd actually did a good job on Meet the Press Daily when he
directly addressed a core problem for Clinton: the public, including
many Democrats, has serious doubts about bedrock issues of personal
integrity.
Todd said

“Your lead in the polls arguably, might be a lot bigger if you didn’t have these honest and trustworthy issues with the voters.”

Well, yes, when only forty-some percent believe you are either and,
by the way, when you have more negatives (41%) than positives (38%)
among those Democratic voters supporting Sen. Sanders.
The email server issue is not our issue. What is relevant is the
manner in which Clinton’s handling of it has diminished her prospects
and soured reliably Democratic outlets (not, I hasten to add, that they
would ever support a Republican for President).
For example, the Post editorial concludes (after listing a couple of weak Clinton rationalizations)

But there is no excuse for the
way Ms. Clinton breezed through all the warnings and notifications.
While not illegal behavior, it was disturbingly unmindful of the rules.
In the middle of the presidential campaign, we urge the FBI to finish
its own investigation soon, so all information about this troubling
episode will be before the voters.

But what’s damning in the new report is her obsessive and counterproductive secrecy.

(2) A well-earned reputation for believing if she can avoid providing a complete answer, the furor will eventually die down:

The stonewalling creates a firm
impression, well captured by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer this week when he
interviewed Clinton’s spokesman, Brian Fallon: “If she didn’t do
anything wrong and she had nothing to hide, why didn’t she cooperate
with the inspector general?”

(3) One step above being crooked:

But what Clinton has been is
nearly as problematic as being crooked: Hunkered Hillary. At the first
sign of conflict or accusation, Clinton circles the wagons, shuts her
mouth and instructs those around her to do the same. This generates a
whole lot of smoke, even if there’s no fire. Her secrecy elevates the
accusations — whatever the accusations are.

(4) Finally, the reflex response that all criticism of Clinton emanates from the “vast right wing conspiracy”:

Fallon, a skilled flack, tried to
argue that Clinton and her aides prioritized the similar Justice
Department investigation and were cooperating with that one. Then he
insinuated that “there were hints of an anti-Clinton bias” in the IG’s
office.

The vast right-wing conspiracy
had infiltrated the State Department! Asked Blitzer: “Are you accusing
the inspector general of the State Department” — a Democratic appointee —
“of having an anti-Clinton bias?”

The spokesman retreated, noting
that the report documented “that the use of personal e-mail was
widespread and done by her predecessors, including Secretary Powell.”

And that might have been the take-away — if Hunkered Hillary hadn’t let her instinctive caution again get the best of her.

New study: Up to 71% of premature babies can survive if given active care

The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Pediatrics just released a new study
that shows that medical advances continue to make the point of
viability earlier and earlier in pregnancy. The study, conducted in
2015, tracked 106 micro-preemies, babies born at either 22 or 23 weeks
gestation (which is 20-21 weeks post-fertilization), at the University
of Cologne Medical Centre in Germany from 2010-2014. Of these 106
babies, 86 of them received active care instead of palliative care. 58
of those babies survived until hospital discharge (67%), with 20% of
them surviving without any severe complications.

Some clinics will only perform abortions up until 21 weeks, six days.
However, there are babies who have been born that young and survived.
Women may also get the date of their last menstrual period wrong,
meaning that a baby could be older than she estimates him or her to be.
As medicine continues to advance, abortion should be further
condemned. This is especially true for late-term abortion and the
viability of preborn babies. As it moves earlier, and science continues
to show that they can feel pain, it becomes more and more clear that
late-term abortion is an atrocity that should not be tolerated.

Here are 10 rapists Planned Parenthood has helped

If you’re at college, you might hear about the Sexual Health Advocacy Group – SHAG for short. Known as “shaggers”
(seriously), members try “to open up the conversation about sexual
health, sex positivity, and sexual communication.” SHAG embraces
disadvantaged groups, including those in the disabled community. It’s also fine with aborting them.

SHAG’s chapter at the University of Georgia has a website with links to various pro-abortion articles. Among them is a piece in Teen Vogue titled, “10 Girls Share How Planned Parenthood Made A Difference In Their Lives.”
Included is a story from “Danielle,” who describes being raped at 14 by several male acquaintances.
The experience left her “a hopeless, desperate, and sad young teen
whose innocence was ripped away by four evil men,” and she was grateful
to Planned Parenthood for giving her Plan B the next day. Danielle says
she lied and told Planned Parenthood staff the sex was consensual; even
if she hadn’t, I’m not sure it would have made a difference.
It didn’t when one of accused serial rapist Tyler Kost’s alleged
victims went to Planned Parenthood. Despite telling staff she’d been
assaulted, they decided filing a report would be too much “hassle.” Kost
remained free, with local law enforcement contending that an
investigation could have started months earlier if Planned Parenthood had come forward.Planned
Parenthood didn’t help Denise Fairbanks, either. Fairbanks was brought
there for an abortion at 16 by her incestuous father. In a subsequent lawsuit,
she recalled explicitly telling Planned Parenthood employees about the
abuse…who proceeded to do nothing, allowing it to resume when she got
home.
Live Action investigated the cover-up of child sexual abuse by Planned Parenthood.
Becki Brenner was president of the Planned Parenthood affiliate
Fairbanks got taken to, and she insisted her organization would be
exonerated, proclaiming, “I am going to be very, very pleased when the facts of this case do come out in a court of law.” Or not: Planned Parenthood chose to settle rather than face a jury.
But ignoring signs of abuse is nothing new at America’s largest abortion chain,
which is why I’ve made a list of my own. So without further adieu, here
are 10 child rapists that were helped by Planned Parenthood.

When Cross’ wife noticed her 13 year-old daughter was gaining weight,
Cross knew it was because he’d gotten her pregnant. Luckily for him,
Planned Parenthood staff didn’t care that she was well below the age of
consent. Instead of calling authorities, they arranged an abortion. With
the evidence gone, Cross was free to keep abusing her – which he did.
2. Timothy Smith

Colorado’s Office of Children, Youth, & Families warns that when a child under fourteen “becomes pregnant or contracts a venereal disease,”
it’s time to get suspicious. Employees at Planned Parenthood of the
Rocky Mountains don’t agree, with one admitting under oath in 2014 that “being thirteen and pregnant alone is not a red flag”
there. That made things easy for Timothy Smith: he brought his 13
year-old stepdaughter in for an abortion after impregnating her. When
they were done, Planned Parenthood turned the victim back over to her
abuser, no questions asked. Later, when the girl’s mother sued Planned
Parenthood, the abortion chain rushed to a settlement when the judge commented that PP’s conduct so outrageous that punitive damages would be appropriate.
3. Joseph Coles

Planned Parenthood didn’t file a report when Coles’ 12 year-old stepdaughter showed up. Then again, the two other abortion centers she was taken to didn’t say anything either.
4. Edgar Ramirez

Ramirez brought his 13 year-old daughter to Planned Parenthood for two abortions in less than 6 months. No action was taken.

In her entry, Danielle said that “if you don’t support Planned
Parenthood, you don’t support 14-year-old me.” Given that Planned
Parenthood assists the type of men who preyed on her, I have to
disagree.

Planned Parenthood sponsors bill to make it illegal to record and post undercover footage

A bill making its way through the California State Assembly,
sponsored by Planned Parenthood, seeks to make it a crime to publish
conversations with certain health care providers,
notably those associated with abortion facilities.

California has already squashed the
rights of pro-life pregnancy centers, demanding they offer abortion as
an option to their clients, despite their pro-life mission.
Now, Planned Parenthood and CA Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez think it’s a
fine idea to prosecute someone from posting a “photo or video of an
interaction with an abortion clinic employee or volunteer— including
clinic escorts,” Life Legal Defense Foundation reports:

Planned Parenthood is sponsoring
legislation in California to criminalize the publication of evidence of
its business practices, which include harvesting and selling the body
parts of aborted babies.

Assembly Bill 1671 would make it a crime
to publish confidential conversations with certain health care
providers—most notably, anyone affiliated with an abortion clinic. This
means anyone who posts a photo or video of an interaction with an
abortion clinic employee or volunteer—including clinic escorts—could be
prosecuted under the bill. AB 1671 provides for penalties of up to $10,000 per violation and one year in state prison.

Gomez, who is behind the bill, is a strong companion of Planned
Parenthood. The assemblyman has a 100 percent rating from the abortion
giant, and is a recipient of Planned Parenthood of Los Angeles’ “Champion of Choice” award.From Jimmy Gomez’s Facebook:
I’m proud to stand with @PPActionCA today and everyday! #PPCapitolDay
#AccessMatters — with Planned Parenthood Los Angeles at California State
Capitol.
Undercover videos released by the Center for Medical Progress last
year exposed Planned Parenthood’s barbaric baby parts harvesting
practices, and placed the abortion giant’s public funding under national
scrutiny.
Life Legal says the bill is an unconstitutional, direct assault on
free speech, and on pro-lifers who have exposed the abortion giant’s
egregious activities.

Pro-life organizations have used investigative journalism, in the
manner of “60 Minutes” and other media outlets, to bring to light the
atrocities hidden inside the abortion industry.
Yet investigative journalism is not limited to pro-life
organizations. Other groups have come out against AB 1671, including the
California Newspaper Publishers Association (CNPA). CNPA states:

The bill has been repeatedly pulled from
hearing in the author’s attempt to sort out language that would remove
the many opponents to the bill, including CNPA. Despite continued
efforts to craft narrowly-tailored language that does not potentially
capture journalists’ activity, the bill’s sponsor, Planned Parenthood,
has been unwilling to squarely address CNPA’s concerns to protect the
redistribution of an illegal recording that depicts a matter of high
public interest.

The amendments to the bill have narrowed
its scope which would target only recordings where one party to the
recording is a health care provider. While this does narrow the bill, it
still captures a significant net of newsworthy content. It still has a
chilling effect. And it still violates First Amendment law.

On May 27, CNPA announced
that “CNPA, California Broadcasters and the Motion Picture Association
all oppose the bill,” and that the bill was “a content based regulation
and presumptively unconstitutional.”

Growing Human Embryos Outside the Womb: New Record, Old Questions

By David Prentice, Ph.D.In Aldous Huxley’s classic novel Brave New World,
natural human reproduction has been replaced by laboratory-based
methods. All children are conceived and grown in laboratory
“hatcheries,” observed and in some cases manipulated during their
gestation to predestine them for certain roles in society, and then
“decanted” from their vats rather than born. There is complete control
over what has become a manufacturing process, disconnected from
nurturing as well as from the attitude that each individual human life
is intrinsically valuable.

While still some distance removed from Huxley’s futuristic
reproductive process, two research groups—one in the U.K. and one in the
U.S.—have succeeded in growing human embryos in the laboratory for 13
days, almost twice the time that had previously been achieved and well
beyond the developmental point (approximately seven days) that a human
embryo would normally implant into the uterine lining.

The groups stopped the experiments (and destroyed the developing
human embryos) only because they were approaching the “14-day limit,” an
internationally-agreed-upon upper limit for the amount of time in which
human embryos may be grown and experimented on in the laboratory. Now
they want to go further. The shadow of Huxley’s Brave New World is growing, preceded by the attitude that embryonic humans are merely experimental fodder.

The research papers were published in the journals Nature and Nature Cell Biology
(subscriptions required for full text.) Nature also published its own
science news story, as well as a commentary on the scientific results
(subscription required). But perhaps most troubling of all is
publication of a proposal by several bioethicists advocating for
expansion of the currently-recognized limit on the age allowed for
experiments on human embryos.

The 14-day limit on laboratory experiments with human embryos has
been adopted into law in at least 12 nations (including the U.K.) and
included in ethical research guidelines in other countries (such as the
U.S.). That particular time point was supposedly adopted because in the
next stage of development, the embryo forms the primitive streak, the
first sign of a rudimentary nervous system, and is also supposedly past
the point at which twinning can occur.

But now the bioethical apologists claim that 14 days was “never
intended to be a bright line denoting onset of moral status,” but was
simply “a public-policy tool” that allowed policymakers to “carve out a
space for scientific inquiry and simultaneously show respect for the
diverse views on human-embryo research.”

The 14-day rule is indeed arbitrary. A zero-day limit would be the
accurate biological marker, since fertilization delineates the beginning
of the human organism. No human being should be used for lethal
experimentation, no matter what age or stage of development.

But allowing experiments on human embryos beyond 14 days
post-fertilization risks the lives of untold more human beings, in
creation and destruction for research purposes. The deadly research on
young human embryos has yielded no benefit; meanwhile, morally
unproblematic avenues are delivering treatments and even cures for some
of the most pressing health issues of our day. No potential, promising
scientific results can justify lethal experimentation on any human
being, especially the youngest and most vulnerable.

The “arbitrariness” of the 14-day limit can be seen in its success;
it worked only as long as it was technically impossible to break. Now
that it is possible to move beyond that length of time in human embryo
culture, the limit is inconvenient.

There is no discussion about whether to proceed, only how to proceed,
and what is the next expedient limit to set, until that new limit also
becomes inconvenient. This is a risky venture which encourages further
eugenic attitudes and actions.

There needs to be a pause for a deeper discussion about just why such
research is being done, and if there are any ethical lines that should
not be crossed. How many lives are worth sacrificing? One? One thousand?
One million? The real question is not when human life begins, but when
do we value any human life.

Editor’s note. This appeared at cmda.org and is reprinted with the author’s permission.

Friday, May 27, 2016

Providing PPFA with free advertising is media’s stock and trade

By Maria Gallagher, Legislative Director, Pennsylvania Pro-Life FederationIt
can be argued that Planned Parenthood does not need a communications
department, because there are plenty in the news media who are willing
to promote the organization, free of charge, and without charging for
overtime.
As if I needed another reminder, I recently ran head-first into
another case of blatant media bias when it comes to the abortion giant
known as Planned Parenthood.

The Scranton Times-Tribune this week ran a glowing endorsement of Planned Parenthood in an op-ed piece entitled, “Trained, ready to fight for freedom of choice.”
The author, Laura Quinones, spoke of her unbridled support of Planned
Parenthood, including her enthusiasm for the Planned Parenthood Action
Fund’s “largest volunteer training in history,” which took place in the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. This training, the activist writes, was to
“make a difference in the 2016 elections and beyond.”

She further spoke of “reproductive rights” being “under attack,” and touted both the Roe v. Wade decision and abortion.
It occurred to me that this column screamed out for a
response—especially given the fact that the newspaper’s home city,
Scranton, was once dubbed the “pro-life capital of the U.S.”
I penned a letter to the editor making the following points:

1.) some gravely important facts were missing from the op-ed;

2.) the abortion giant performed more than 327,000 abortions in fiscal year 2014—a rate of one abortion every 90 seconds;

4.) Planned Parenthood receives $500
million taxpayer dollars a year while showing a complete unconcern for
the health of women inside their mothers’ wombs.

An editor rejected my letter? Why? I hadn’t addressed what the columnist had said in her column, I was told.
But I had taken on the column head-on–noting its
glaring omission of key facts—facts that could arguably change a
person’s view of Planned Parenthood. Sometimes omission is a greater sin
than commission, and I felt it was clearly true in this case.

The editor’s response to my retort was that abortions account for “3
percent of (Planned Parenthood’s) medical services.” That is an accurate
regurgitation of a Planned Parenthood talking point. But it is
incredibly misleading, since PPFA arrives at the figure by counting
every STD test, every packet of pills given out, and even a woman’s
initial pregnancy test as a separate service, even though these may all
be bundled and sold together as part of the abortion.
And, oh by the way, abortion is PPFA’s largest profit center.

Perhaps this explains why Roe v. Wade has been able to survive for so
long and why more than 58 million preborn babies have perished since
the tragic 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. The general public is
shielded from the facts about abortion and Planned Parenthood by a news
media that are willing to defend the abortion operation and its grisly
trade at all costs, including balanced and comprehensive coverage of a
controversial issue.

When I went to Northwestern, I was taught that journalism was a
profession that was ennobled because it was dedicated to a pursuit of
the truth. But the truth is absent in editorial pages that fail to
include hard and fast abortion statistics and opt instead to present a
pristine cheerleading piece about an entity that takes the lives of more
children than any other, while ignoring the searing pain of women who
mourn their dead babies.

No wonder the newspaper business is dying. They might have had
327,000 more subscribers, but Planned Parenthood aborted them—news the
newspapers were not willing to print.

The CEO of the Royal College of Midwives must step down over this abortion scandal

By Peter SaundersEditor’s note.. Dr. Saunders is a former general surgeon and CEO
of Christian Medical Fellowship, a UK-based organization with 4,500 UK
doctors and 1,000 medical students as members.“BPAS” refers to the British Pregnancy Advisory Service– the nation’s largest abortion provider. This appeared here.The
Royal College of Midwives (RCM) has come under fire for backing the
BPAS ‘We Trust Women’ Campaign, which advocates the decriminalisation of
abortion up until birth.
RCM CEO Cathy Warwick gave her backing to the controversial campaign
back in February, when she said that the campaign had the College’s
‘full support’.
This will surprise the 30,000 midwives who belong to RCM as they were
not consulted at any point. Nor it seems was the RCM board.

98% of women in a 2012 survey said they opposed any rise in the
abortion limit above 24 weeks so it seems that women in general are
strongly opposed to Warwick’s position.
Furthermore, the RCM itself in the 1980s actually supported a lowering of the upper limit for abortion from 28 weeks to 24 weeks.
So how did an organisation, devoted to the safety through childbirth
of both mother and baby, and with the motto ‘Life is the gift of God,’
come to such a place?
The answer it seems lies in its current leadership. Its CEO, who also
chairs the abortion ‘provider’ BPAS, responsible for 65,000 abortions
per year in Britain, is apparently waging something of a personal
crusade.

Warwick’s proposal is to remove legal protection from babies between
24 and 40 weeks, allowing viable babies in the womb to be aborted for
each and every reason.
In the UK about 8% of babies are born before 37 weeks (a normal
pregnancy lasts 40 weeks), nearly 60,000 premature births every year.
The vast majority of these survive and thrive, and in the best units
like University College London, about 80% of those born at 24 weeks will
live with good postnatal care.
How does one abort a baby at an age at which it would be born alive and almost certainly survive?
One has to kill it first in utero, normally with a lethal
injection, or alternatively, remove it manually piece by piece. Chilling
to think that midwives, trained safely to deliver babies and place them
tenderly in their mothers’ arms, are now supporting their destruction
at the very same age.
Abortion is contrary to every historic code of medical ethics. It is
against the Hippocratic Oath, the Declaration of Geneva and the
International Code of Medical Ethics. In 1947 the British Medical
Association called abortion ‘the greatest crime’.

Two hundred midwives have already signed a letter ‘not in our name’
dissociating themselves from the RCM’s position and thousands more
citizens have called on the College to abandon its policy.
Thus far the RCM has shown no sign of turning. It has published a
statement on its website today replete with specious euphemisms claiming
that it is the victim of ‘distorted and sensationalist accounts’.
But the legal position it is advocating is one where all legal
protection for unborn children will be removed – a law like that of
China and North Korea.
The RCM used to stand for women’s and children’s health. Now it seems to deny the humanity of the preborn baby altogether.

Any society will be judged by the way it treats its most vulnerable
members and there is nothing more innocent and vulnerable than a baby in
its mother’s womb.
Warwick is guilty of a blatant conflict of interests. She needs to
step down either from the RCM, or BPAS but cannot continue in both
positions.
Hopefully the board and members of the RCM, rather than complicitly
closing ranks around her, will help her to do the decent thing.

“What does it mean to be fully human?”–To love you as you are

By Dave Andrusko

Jean Vanier

Over the years contributors to NRL News Today have had the
pleasure of writing stories about Jean Vanier, the founder of L’Arche , a
community of people with intellectual disabilities and those who assist
them, who share their lives together.

A friend forwarded a story that appeared last week in The Catholic Register
about a new biography of the almost 88-year-old Catholic philosopher
written by Michael Higgins. According to reporter Michael Swan,
“Published in Canada by Novalis, Jean Vanier, Logician of the Heart has seen record-breaking pre-publication orders pour in to its American publisher, Liturgical Press.”

“I have no illusions that this
has anything to do with the author,” said Higgins [at the Toronto launch
of the book]. “It’s all about the subject.”

Higgins was asked how it is possible for Vanier to take “strong,
uncompromising and unpopular positions” against, for example,
physician-assisted suicide. Swan writes

Higgins’ answer is that Vanier knows how to state his case positively and in Christian charity.

“He shows us how you state your
case without eviscerating, vilifying or diminishing those who hold other
positions,” Higgins said.

The Vanier method of argument humanizes and ennobles everyone, he said.

“Here is a religious figure for whom the secular can find something admirable,” said Higgins.

When last we wrote about Vanier, he had just received the 2015 Templeton Prize, an award for promoting spiritual awareness.
Who is Jean Vanier? He is described (by the Independent’s
John Litchfield) as a Catholic philosopher, and activist for those with
mental disabilities whose “life’s work has been based on the conviction
that the ‘strong need the weak.’” That would be L’Arche to which Vanier
said he would give the 1.7 million prize money.In a powerful piece written last year by Conor Friedersdorfmar that appeared in The Atlantic, Mr. Friedersdorfmar took the time to transcribe Vanier’s deeply inspirational remarks delivered when he received the award.

To be fully human is really to
discover who I am. And who am I? I’m a member of the huge human family,
where we’re all brothers and sisters wherever we come from, whatever our
culture, whatever our religion. We were born in weakness. We will grow.
And we will die. So the story of each one of us is a story of accepting
that we are fragile.

To discover who I am is also to
discover a unity between my head and my heart. The head we are called to
grow, to understand, and to work through things. But the heart is
something else. It is about concern by others. We are born into a
relationship. And that relationship that we all lived is a relationship
with our mom. We were so small. So weak. So fragile. And we heard the
words which are the most important, and maybe the words we need to hear
all our life: I love you as you are. You are my beloved son or my
beloved daughter. And this is what gives consistency to people. They
know they are loved. And that’s what they’re seeking, maybe for the rest
of their lives.

So there’s the head, where we are
called to understand and to deepen the laws of the world, of nature,
and so on. But there’s also the heart. The heart is a very fragile part
of us.

And terribly fragile in the
little child. If the little child is not loved at the moment of his
birth or the few months after there’s a deep, deep inner wound. And from
that wound comes up anguish, from anguish comes fighting and wanting to
win, and to prove that I am someone.

Fundamentally, to develop the
heart is to see that in each person you are beautiful. You see, the
whole thing with human beings is to learn to love. And to love is not to
do things for people. It’s not to tell people what to do. It’s to
reveal. What do we reveal? ‘You’re important.’ You might be important in
the things you do. But there’s something even more important than what
you do. It’s who you are. And who you are is something about your heart
being open to others. A heart that is not filled with fear.

The problem today is that many
people are filled with fear. They are frightened of people, frightened
of losing. And because people are filled with fear they can no longer be
open to others. They’re protecting themselves, protecting their class,
protecting their group, protecting their religion. We’re all in a state
of protection. To become fully human is to let down the barriers, to
open up. And to discover that every person is beautiful. Under all the
jobs they’re doing, their responsibilities, there is you. And you, at
the heart of who you are, you’re somebody also crying out, “Does
somebody love me not just for what I can do, but for who I am?”

So to be fully human is the
development of the heart and the head, and then we can become one. One
inside of us. Becoming one inside of us we can little by little let down
the ego, the need to prove that I am better than you. And then I can
begin to see in other people, other groups, other religions, other
cultures, that people are wonderful. And then we can come and we can
work for peace together.

National Right to Life congratulates GOP Platform Committee leadership

Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin

WASHINGTON – The National Right to Life Committee today praised the
selection of Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.),
and Gov. Mary Fallin (R-Okla.) as co-chairs of the Republican Platform
Committee.
“In selecting Sen. Barrasso, Rep. Foxx, and Gov. Fallin to
head the Platform Committee, the Republican National Committee has sent a
strong message that the pro-life planks in the Republican platform will
steadfastly reflect commitment to the right to life, and that the GOP
will proudly stand as the party of life,” said Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life.

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.)

Sen. Barrasso has maintained a 100% pro-life voting record since
joining the U.S. Senate in 2007. Rep. Foxx also has a 100% pro-life
voting record, and has been a faithful and articulate leader for life as
a member of the U.S. House. Gov. Fallin has been a stalwart defender of
society’s most vulnerable members, first with a 100% pro-life record in
the U.S. House, and now as a strong pro-life leader as governor of
Oklahoma.
“As governor, Mary Fallin signed into law 18 pro-life bills
protecting unborn children and their mothers during these past five and a
half years,” said Tobias.

Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.)

As adopted in Tampa, Florida, in 2012, the current Republican
platform reads, “Faithful to the ‘self-evident’ truths enshrined in the
Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and
affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life
which cannot be infringed.”
“We applaud Sen. Barrasso, Rep. Foxx, and Gov. Fallin, and
look forward to working with them to ensure that the pro-life values
embodied in the Republican platform continue to move us toward a society
that welcomes the vulnerable in life, and gives them the full
protection of our laws,” Tobias added.

Thursday, May 26, 2016

WASHINGTON
– South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) today signed the Pain-Capable
Unborn Child Protection Act – a bill that protects unborn children from
abortions after 20 weeks fetal age, a point by which there is compelling
evidence that unborn children are capable of feeling pain. South
Carolina becomes the fourteenth state to enact this legislation, which
is based on a model bill developed by National Right to Life.
“South Carolina now joins thirteen other states in recognizing the humanity of the unborn child,” said Carol Tobias, National Right to Life president. “The
smallest and most vulnerable members of our human family need our
protection, and South Carolina has taken a vital step to save unborn
children who are capable of feeling the excruciating pain of abortion.”
The South Carolina Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act generally
protects the lives of pain-capable unborn children from being killed by
abortion. The law protects unborn children from 20 weeks fetal age,
based on legislative findings that there is compelling evidence that an
unborn child by that point (if not earlier) is capable of experiencing
excruciating pain during the process of dismemberment or other abortion
procedures.
“South Carolina Citizens for Life and the pro-life grassroots network worked tirelessly against the militant abortion industry,” said Holly Gatling, executive director of South Carolina Citizens for Life. “Pro-life
lawmakers prevailed, however, because of the dedication and hard work
of the pro-life community. In addition to South Carolina Citizens for
Life, the legislation was strongly supported by a coalition of the
Catholic Diocese of Charleston, the South Carolina Baptist Convention,
the South Carolina Association of Pregnancy Care Centers, and Palmetto
Family Council.”
Last year, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a national
version of the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (H.R. 36). A
minority of pro-abortion Democrats blocked consideration of the bill in
the U.S. Senate last September.
“Basic compassion for human life demands that this legislation be enacted all over the country,” said National Right to Life Director of State Legislation Mary Spaulding Balch, J.D. “In
our upside-down society, most animals have more rights than unborn
members of the human family. We are thankful the South Carolina General
Assembly and Gov. Nikki Haley have recognized their solemn duty in
protecting the lives of the most vulnerable.”
Some of the extensive evidence that unborn children have the capacity
to experience pain, at least by 20 weeks fetal age, is available on the
National Right to Life website at www.nrlc.org/abortion/fetalpain and also here: www.doctorsonfetalpain.com.
South Carolina Citizens for Life has found a direct correlation in
the enactment of pro-life laws and a dramatic 59% decline in the number
of abortions in the state since 1988. A chart showing the decline can be
found on the SCCL website.

Does every human life have equal and incalculable moral value simply and merely because it is human?

By Wesley J. Smith

Wesley Smith

We live in an increasingly secular society. One consequence (among
many) of this cultural shift has been an increasing rejection of the
once uncontroversial belief that humans reside uniquely at the pinnacle
of moral worth.
Activist academics, purveyors of popular culture, and issue
ideologues across a wide swath of movements—from bioethics, to animal
rights, to environmentalism—seek to knock us off the pedestal. Public
intellectuals like Princeton University’s Peter Singer even argue that
being human is morally irrelevant; what matters is possessing sufficient
cognitive capacities to qualify as a “person.”
In this view, some humans—such as the unborn, infants, and those
people with advanced Alzheimer’s—don’t qualify as persons, meaning that
they can be killed, have their organs harvested, or become subjects of
experiments. At the same time, some animals are deemed persons, making
their captivity equivalent to slavery.

Deeper in the realm of the surreal, some of the world’s leading
environmentalists consider us the villains of the planet—a “plague on
the earth, according to Sir David Attenborough, or, as Canadian
television and environmental celebrity David Suzuki once put it,
“maggots defecating all over the environment.”

Such blatant anti-humanism is often dismissed or unanswered in the
public square. But, as recent headlines about Planned Parenthood and the
push for assisted suicide demonstrate, now is the time to defend
intrinsic human value. What, however, is the best defense?
The case for humankind is often made in religious terms. For example,
Christian leaders may say that we have unique value because only humans
are created in God’s image. As true as I think that is, imago Dei will not persuade those who don’t believe in God.
A belief in human exceptionalism, on the other hand, does not depend
on religious faith. Whether we were created by God, came into being
through blind evolution, or were intelligently designed, the importance
of human existence can and should be supported by the rational
examination of the differences between us and all other known life
forms.

After all, what other species in known history has had the wondrous
capacities of human beings? What other species has been able to (at
least partially) control nature instead of being controlled by it? What
other species builds civilizations, records history, creates art, makes
music, thinks abstractly, communicates in language, envisions and
fabricates machinery, improves life through science and engineering, or
explores the deeper truths found in philosophy and religion? What other
species has true freedom? Not one.

Only humans have the capacity to embrace the good and to engage in
evil—a moral attribute embedded in our very natures. Moreover, we alone
comprehend the grandeur, beauty, and importance of the natural world.
The elephant is not awestruck at the sight of sunset. Nor can the
squirrel appreciate the beauty of the blue jay and the butterfly. Yet
even small children can love animals and wonder at the world.

Perhaps the most important distinction between the fauna and us is
our moral agency. The sow that permits the runt of her litter to starve
is not a negligent parent, but a human mother doing the same would be
branded a monster. The feline that plays with a fallen baby bird before
consuming it is not being sadistic; she is acting like a cat! But any
human who tortures an animal is rightly seen as pathological.

Some see the claim of human exceptionalism as hubristic and
dangerous; if we are so superior, aren’t we then entitled to treat
animals as cruelly as we want? Just the opposite, in fact. We are
capable of apprehending the difference between right and wrong, good and
evil, proper and improper conduct. Or, put another way: If being human,
in and of itself, isn’t what requires us to treat each other, animals,
and nature properly, then what in the world does?
I believe that our morality in the twenty-first century will depend
on how we respond to this question: Does every human life have equal and
incalculable moral value simply and merely because it is human?

Answer yes, and we have a chance of achieving a truly humane, free,
and prosperous society. Answer no, and we are just another animal in the
forest. If that is how we define ourselves, it is precisely how we will
act.

Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute’s
Center on Human Exceptionalism and a consultant to the Patient’s Rights
Council. This appeared at firstthings.com.

Due to fear of disability, doctor tries to get woman to abort

By Sarah TerzoAuthor
Ann Saltenberger describes an experience she had while pregnant. She
became sick and spent some time in the hospital, where doctors ran a
battery of tests including x-rays. She was pregnant and a doctor told
her she should abort her baby. The doctor told her the following when he
was driving her home:

“An hour later the green,
sundrenched farmlands of South Jersey were slipping past the car
windows. I settled back into the plush seat and relaxed. But Dr. L was
tense and I soon found out why. “I know you’re the wrong person to say
this to,” he began (I had already begun to garner a considerable
reputation for my research into the effects of artificial pregnancy
termination), “but you really should have an abortion.”

His words had continued, unheard.
I tuned in as he was saying something about my probably having a viral
infection, and German Measles is a viral infection, “and we all know
what German Measles does.”

“Yes, but it only does it to 25% of preborns. You’re not going to tell me that part, are you?,” I thought, but I said nothing.

He droned on. The x-rays. X-rays
do horrible things: twist developing bodies, destroy forming minds. No
doubt about it, he was sure this baby would be retarded or deformed. Not
worth worrying over. Not worth saving. Rx: abort it and forget it.”

Her baby was born perfectly healthy:

“Now, eight years later, it’s
spring again. The sun is shining and the breezes are warm. And Jimmy is
seven and healthy and strong, full of fun and questions and tricks.
Appearance: beautiful; neurological evaluation: normal; intelligence:
superior.”

Ann Saltenberger, Every Woman Has a Right to Know the Dangers of
Legal Abortion (Glassboro, New Jersey: Air – Plus Enterprises, 1983) 14,
17.

Who had the worst 24 hours in Washington? Hillary Clinton

By Dave Andrusko

Hillary Clinton, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and Bernie Sanders

At the Washington Post, they have a feature asking who had
the “worst week in Washington?” If there was an award for the worst 24
hours, clearly it would go to the presumptive Democratic presidential
nominee, pro-abortion Hillary Clinton.
(Although Democratic National Committee Chair, Rep. Debbie
Wasserman-Schultz ,who may be on her way out the door, could be a close
second. But the two go together.)
You no doubt heard that the long-simmering scandal-in-the-making
question of Clinton’s use of a private email server while serving as
Secretary of State just got a whole lot hotter and a whole lot less
“potential.”To quote Reuters

Democratic presidential candidate
Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while U.S. secretary of
state broke government rules and was not approved by State Department
security officials, according to an internal government watchdog’s
report released on Wednesday.

Clinton’s use of the private
email server in her home in Chappaqua, New York, for government purposes
has prompted several investigations, including an ongoing probe by the
Federal Bureau of Investigation. The email controversy has hung over her
campaign for months.

The report represents the latest
pushback — in this case by a nonpartisan government entity — against her
campaign’s claim that she did not break any rules and that her use of a
private server was completely allowed.

Meanwhile, with the huge California presidential primary coming up
June 7, more internecine fighting between Democratic Socialist Sen.
Bernie Sanders and the Democratic Party. This week Sanders said if he
becomes president, he would ask Wasserman Schultz to step down.According to CNN

Democratic senators are
discussing whether Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie
Wasserman Schultz should be removed as the head of the party because she
has become “too toxic” in the ongoing Democratic civil war.

“There is a lot of sentiment that
replacing her would be a good idea. It is being discussed quietly among
Democratic senators on the floor, in the cloakroom and in lunches,” a
senior Senate Democratic source told CNN on condition of anonymity to
discuss private talks among lawmakers.

Wasserman Schultz has had an
increasingly acrimonious relationship with the party’s other
presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders, and his supporters, who argue
she has tilted the scales in Clinton’s favor.

“There have been a lot of
meetings over the past 48 hours about what color plate do we deliver
Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s head on,” said one pro-Clinton Democratic
senator.

The lawmaker said senators
huddled on the chamber floor last week to talk about Wasserman Schultz’s
future and estimated that about a dozen have weighed in during private
conversations.

“I don’t see how she can continue
to the election. How can she open the convention? Sanders supporters
would go nuts,” said the lawmaker, who requested anonymity because of
the sensitive nature of the discussions.

At the same time, however, according to the Hill’s Alexander Bolton

There is no indication Wasserman
Schultz, who is also a Florida congresswoman, has any plans to leave her
post. And Senate sources stress that a final decision won’t be made
until Clinton and Sanders negotiate some type of deal aimed at healing
the party. President Obama, who selected Wasserman Schultz as chairwoman
in 2011, is expected to play a major role in any such talks.

The next few days before the California primary will be something
else. Oh, by the way, Sanders campaign has asked for a recanvass of
voting in the Kentucky May 17 primary that he lost to Clinton by less
than 2,000 votes.

I was waiting in my car to meet my pastor for coffee when I heard
Democratic shill MSNBC’s Chuck Todd interviewed on a local Virginia
radio station. The immediate topic was pro-abortion Virginia Gov. (and
Hillary Clinton confidant) Terry McAuliffe who, the Washington Post had reported in today’s newspaper, had been under federal investigation for more than a year.According to the Post

CNN first reported the
inquiry, saying that investigators are looking into a six-figure
contribution that Chinese businessman Wang Wenliang made to McAuliffe’s
campaign through his U.S. businesses.

But a federal official told The Washington Post federal investigators are looking broadly at donations to McAuliffe and at his personal finances.

I mention this for multiple reasons. Were this a Republican governor,
the two local radio people interviewing Todd would have been on him/her
with unparalleled ferocity. (By the way, Newsbusters pointed out that in breaking the news, CNBC’s chief Washington correspondent John Harwood “slipped and referred to McAuliffe as ‘the second consecutive Republican Governor to face a corruption investigation’ following predecessor and actual Republican Bob McDonnell.”)
Instead their tone was one of more sadness than anger/outrage. Todd’s
voice was so quiet I thought his microphone was malfunctioning.
Todd had no choice but to bring up the obvious: McAuliffe’s long
standing ties to the Clintons and the truth that Virginia is a swing
state in the 2016 presidential election.
But it’s more than not-so-subtle media bias and the possible impact
on the presidential election that attracts your attention. This was one
of several stories in the Post and elsewhere where reporters
were running interference for the former Secretary of State, or at least
attempting to limit the damage.
For instance, there is another story in the Post about next
month’s California presidential primary. As Abby Phillip and Anne Gearan
write, while it is mathematically possible Clinton will have already
achieved enough delegates to win the nomination before the June 7
primary,

losing one of the country’s most
diverse and Democratic states to Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont would be
such a damaging way to end this tumultuous primary season that Clinton
is planning to spend millions there over the next two weeks.

This isn’t exactly what Clinton
had hoped to be doing as her party’s July convention in Philadelphia
approaches and Republicans ramp up for the general election.

And then what to do about the recent polls which show Mrs. Clinton’s
support melting away? Nate Cohn dips into “Explaining Hillary Clinton’s
Lost Ground in the Polls” in today’s New York Times.
In the end, don’t be overly worried, right? The party will consolidate around Mrs. Clinton as the nominee, correct?
Well… Cohn writes

But Mrs. Clinton nonetheless
struggles because of her inability to consolidate the
independent-leaning, young, liberal supporters of Mr. Sanders. The most
recent wave of national surveys shows Mrs. Clinton winning just 55 to 72
percent of Sanders’s supporters. She’s faring far worse among young and
liberal voters than one would expect.

And didn’t Obama experience a dip in the polls against GOP nominee
John McCain and then regain the lead after he formally became the
Democrats’ presidential nominee? In other words, won’t Sanders’
supporters come home? Cohn observes

Mrs. Clinton may find it not so
easy to repeat Mr. Obama’s gains. There has been weakening in her
support among Mr. Sanders’s supporters over the last month or so. In
April, Mrs. Clinton held between 71 and 82 percent of Mr. Sanders’s
supporters; today it’s between 55 and 72 percent.

Exactly what’s driving the shift
is hard to say. What’s clear is that Mrs. Clinton’s challenge isn’t
totally superficial. Just 20 percent of Mr. Sanders’s supporters have a
favorable view of Mrs. Clinton in the most recent New York Times/CBS
News survey, while 47 percent have an unfavorable one.

Of course, this wasn’t Cohn’s topic, but it is not just Clinton’s
intra-party woes. Independents do not particularly like her, nor
(overwhelmingly) do White males.
More to come.

Death measure wins narrow approval in New York Assembly Health Committee

Having
rushed the “Medical Aid in Dying Act”– A10059/S7579 was introduced just
two weeks ago– the New York Assembly Health Committee yesterday
narrowly approved the measure, 14-11. Eight Democratic members of the
committee are sponsors of the bill.
It is urgent that you contact your legislators in the Assembly immediately and urge them to vote NO on A10059/S7579.
You can find a list at: http://nyassembly.gov/mem
For the moment, there is no action in the Senate.
The quick move in the Health Committee comes less than three weeks
after the Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court ruled that New
York’s ban on assisting a suicide is constitutional.
“In its decision in Myers vs. Schneiderman, the Court noted
that there has been no ‘societal evolution’ on this issue and there is
no consensus of opinion,” said Michael Burgess, former Director of the
State Office for the Aging and a spokesperson for the NY Alliance
Against Assisted Suicide. “Why would our elected representatives choose
to rush to vote on a brand new bill giving this kind of unprecedented
power to physicians who aren’t even seeking it?” Burgess asked. “It is
actions like this that have caused New Yorkers to question the way state
government operates.”
A10059/ S.7579 is being promoted under the false notion that it will
provide terminally ill people with merely one more “option.”
However, this is far from the truth. The “Medical Aid in Dying Act”
is riddled with dangerous problems that seek to destroy existing
protections for the vulnerable.
The language purports to “safeguard” assisted suicide and restrict it
to the terminally ill and the competent. However, these kinds of
assisted suicide proposals are opposed by medical groups (including the
Medical Society of the State of New York and the American Medical
Association) and many in the disability right community. Safeguards
simply do not work. Among the glaring omissions:

· There is no protection for
those seeking assisted suicide because they suffer from treatable
depression or any other mental health issue

· Predictions that someone will die in six months are often wrong;

· Abuse of elders and people with disabilities is a growing but often undetected problem

· If assisted suicide is legalized, it will quickly become the cheapest alternative to medical treatment.

It is urgent that every member of the New York Assembly Health
Committee hear from you. Most legislators have never considered
legislation like this, and they need to know that New York does not want
to destroy existing protection for those facing a difficult diagnosis.
Printable factsheets can be found at: www.nrlc.org/medethics/directkilling
Please contact your legislators in the Assembly immediately and urge them to vote NO on A10059/S7579.A list of names can be found at: http://nyassembly.gov/mem

Annual Media love-fest for abortion entrepreneur Burkhart

By Kathy Ostrowski, Legislative Director, Kansans for Life

South Wind Women’s Center director Julie Burkhart

Well, May is here, and with it comes the now apparently obligatory
annual media interviews fawning over abortion profiteer Julie Burkhart.
Burkhart started the George Tiller legacy project [“Trust Women”]
after the Wichita abortionist’s death on May 31, 2009. Every May
afterwards, the media spins a “memorial” of sorts to Tiller and
Burkhart.
The tributes escalated beginning three years ago, when, after much
fanfare, Burkhart opened the SouthWind Women’s Center on the site of
Tiller’s old Wichita, Kansas location. It is part of her drive to “forge
new frontiers” in the Midwest– which pro-abortionists term a “desert”
of “abortion care.”
On cue last week, a lengthy pro-Burkhart feature–“Meet the Woman Opening an Abortion Clinic in the Most Anti-Choice State”- turned up in Rolling Stone.

There were numerous other local and national reports (see below).
They were orchestrated undoubtedly by Trust Women’s new publicist,
Deb Gruver. It was quite the coup getting Gruver, who recently ended a
26-year news reporting career, with the last 15 years writing for the
pro-abortion Wichita Eagle.

The Burkhart media blitz included:
* May 17 – a story from the liberal National Council of State
Legislatures in which Burkhart complains of health inspections under
conservative governors and spending over $200,000 in (unspecified) legal
fees.
* May 19 – a Wichita Eagle Guest Column by Burkhart,
claiming that Kansas abortion “restrictions” keep poor women in “second
class” teaching and nursing jobs instead of lucrative careers and
political offices.
* May 19 – a TV news feature on Burkhart’s “challenges” to opening a
clinic in Oklahoma, because it is such “a politically hostile
environment for women and their families.”
* May 19 – an extensive article in Marie Claire that lionizes Burkhart’s Wichita/Oklahoma fly-in abortionist, Colleen McNicholas. McNicholas admits to a rate of 31 abortions per 8-hour shift when she works at the Planned Parenthood in St. Louis.
* May 20 – a Washington Post article (also in the Eagle)
about Burkhart’s circuit-riding Missouri abortionist and her confidence
that abortion attorneys will block any Oklahoma pro-life law that
threatens them.

* May 20 – Robin Marty’s piece in Rolling Stone where
Burkhart complains about how hard it was to find the Oklahoma location
and obey state regulators; she also claims pro-life laws unfairly scare
women about the caliber of abortionists and their facilities, whereas
SouthWind clients compliment her “all the time” on how “clean and nice”
her facility is. (I’m not kidding.)
* May 21- another Eagle/AP story that extensively details
Burkhart’s financial issues, with her prediction that many “underserved”
Texas women will use her Oklahoma City clinic.
The unifying media message in these articles is that (1) Burkhart
battles “hostile’ pro-life state legislatures; and (2) she may lose
ground in an upcoming U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the Texas HB 2
abortion clinic regulations law.

The Court “threat” for Burkhart was spelled out in Marie Claire:

“All three states where
McNicholas performs abortions [MO-KS-OK] have admitting-privileges laws
on the books…. Kansas and Oklahoma have also passed privileges laws, but
both are currently on hold pending legal challenges. McNicholas has
admitting privileges only in St. Louis, which means if HB2 is upheld and
Kansas’ and Oklahoma’s pending laws are enacted as a result, she will
no longer be able to perform abortions anywhere outside St. Louis.”

PBS reported that Burkhart’s SouthWind Wichita clinic charges up to
$2,000 for dismemberment abortions past 14 weeks gestation. She is
quoted in Rolling Stone that her Oklahoma City business will do
higher gestation abortions—abortions on even more mature and developed
babies–at expectedly higher prices.

A whole lot of money is riding on Burkhart having abortionists available for hire.
Although the media acquiesces to the annual May blast of stories
portraying Burkhart as continuing some noble quest in honor of Tiller,
we know better.